Learning from/for a Sustainable CommunityHow can designers bring people to collaborate for the improvement of their community and society?

Clara Verbaeys & Perus Saranurak

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How can designers bring people to collaborate for the improvement of their

community and society?

Goldsmiths, University of London

Metadesign and Futures of Sociability (co-authors)

Writers:

Clara Verbaeys, Product designer, Metadesigner

Perus Saranurak, Product designer, Metadesigner

Internal Reader:

Designer for Education System

External Reader:

School director, minister of education, other institutions

Printed on the 19th February 2014

1st edition

Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1

1- Sociability .............................................................................................................. 2

2-Creativity ................................................................................................................ 3

3-Tools for the community ........................................................................................ 5

4-Learning from a Community .................................................................................. 8

5-Dream Together Board Report ............................................................................ 10

Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 11

Bibliography: ............................................................................................................ 12

Image Appendix: ...................................................................................................... 12

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Sub-question:

How can people understand the importance of sociability?

How to create the platform where everybody can get involved?

Writing as:

Activity facilitators/ social interaction promoters

Reader:

School director, minister of education, other institutions

Context:

Lack of social interaction in a community

Idea:

Create a tool that generates playful activities or situations where people get to

collaborate to resolve problems in their community or rural area.

Today, social interaction within a community has become something rare.

Technologies promote interactions via the internet, and individualism keeps being

proned by capitalism and the Western lifestyle. Unfortunately, we forgot the

benefits of sociability and of “direct” contact with another being. We forgot that it

makes us stronger, and enables us to achieve more than alone. That social

intergration affects our health, and that collaboration often leads to more creative

and more durable ideas and solutions.

Because we believe in the importance of collaboration and the benefits of learning

from each other, we as young metadesigners would like to facilitate social

interaction. In order to do that, we propose a tool and a platform that will

encourage creative activities within a community, and enhance the quality of life

in the area. Moreover, we believe that the tool will help the inhabitants to let their

creativity come out (without being afraid of making mistakes). In fact, the

diversity, the different perspectives and creative minds are fundamental and lead

to better solutions for the future. As a starting point, we would like to propose this

tool to schools. Since all children are born creative, we believe that the creativity

should be maintained all their life, through educational methods that recommend

it. Even though based in schools, the tool also requires the participation of

teachers, parents, and the community’s inhabitants. The school is thus the ground

from which collaboration extends throughout the whole area.

In this essay, we will talk about the importance of sociability and creativity, and

how educational methods can encourage it. One of these being metadesign, that

we will then introduce. How metadesign tools help in the project and benefit to a

community. We will define the tool we created, explain how it works and how the

people of the community get involved through the students. Finally, we will

analyse the results from an experimental test-run we did in Goldsmiths University.

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Together is better

Sociability is the ability to live in a society. A society is « a whole made of

individuals that have determined relationships and are unified by reciprocal

services. » (Russ, 2001, 269) Any individual living in a society is consequently a

member of a group. The relationships he/she decides to build with the other

members of the society depends on how much he/she believes in the importance

of the community. Unfortunately, the sense of community is slowly disappearing,

especially in big cities, where life has become very impersonal and individualistic.

We have grown to believe (and we have been taught since we the early age) that

the best way to success is by putting trust only on our own self, and by not relying

on the help of others. A community is composed of « social groups whose

members have common interests and form a unity. » (Russ, 2001, 124) If we

concentrate on people's common interests, we can organise collective actions,

where individuals are grouped to achieve a common goal. As metadesigners, we

want to make people realise the importance for an individual to be part of a

community. By promoting collaborative exercises at school, people could be

educated to understand the benefits of cooperation and sociability.

Health and Sociability Firstly, being alienated from society has been medically proved to have an impact

on health. In his book The Science Delusion, Sheldrake mentions that « evidence

shows that health is influenced by social, spiritual and emotional factors. For

example, in studies in the United States, men who had suffered a heart attack

were four times more likely to die in the next three years if they were socially

isolated. » (Sheldrake, 2012, 278) It is not a coincidence if the World Health

Organization (WHO) defines health as a state of physical, mental and social well-

being. The human being is one of the most developed eusocial species on earth.

To be part of a society is one of our most basic and essential need. So why are we

trying to deny this fact and to become anti-social?

Synergy Saint Simon states that « Society is not a simple agglomeration of human beings,

where independent actions have no other reason than the arbitrary of individual

desires [...] ; in contrary, society is a truly organised machine where each part

contributes in a different way to the operating of the whole. » (cited by Russ,

2001, 269) This statement takes us to the concept of « Synergy » but in a synergy,

the whole is superior to the sum of the parts. The concept of synergy is that

abundance (usually of quality, not quantity) does not come from individual

resources, but from their combination. Thus the collaboration of individuals

resolves challenges that would be too big for an individual. This abundance, the

solutions that the combination of resources come up with are often superior

because it preaches diversity and enhances personal and social creativity. As

Fischer states, « Complex design problems require more knowledge than any

single person can possess. » (Fischer, 2003) This knowledge is distributed among

each and every stakeholder, since they have different perspectives and

backgrounds. This mix of perspectives and backgrounds is the foundation for

social creativity.

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Everyone is creative.

The general definition of creativity could be a skill for producing both new and

appropriate solutions. Also, many people think that creativity is rare, which could

be found only in genius, but this is wrong. This definition focuses creativity only in

term of problem-solving tools, but, creativity has been used in other areas too.

This chapter will prove that, actually, everyone can be creative. First of all, we

have to understand clearly about:

“What is Creativity?”

In the wider views, creativity is a fundamental part of art, science and humour,

where is broader than problem-solving area. According to Arthur Koestler (1964

cited by Sanders, 2012, 38), “creative act involves bisociation, a process that

brings together and combines previously unrelated ideas”, which could cover all

types of creativity. This could help us to reframe the creativity definition, and it

will lead to the answer of why/how everyone could be creative.

Creativity in everyone Margaret Boden (1990 cited by Sanders, 2012, 38), the research professor of

cognitive science, distinguishes creative in two types; ‘H-Creative’ and ‘P-Creative’.

The historically creative, which is called H-creativity, is understood as the ability in

the imagination of an absolutely new idea. However, the psychologically creative,

P-creative, could be a daily skill which is the process of transformative one idea

into another area. We always use it unconsciously, while we are discussing,

learning and playing. So P-creative is the skill which everyone has already had it

and Sanders also shows that it has levels of developing creativity; In short, she

calls doing, adapting, making and creating. For example, in cooking activity, firstly

we have to learn how to use the kitchen and preparation, then we can use

creativity in adapting ingredients and if we have enough cooking experiences, we

could create own recipes. All these processes are based on transformative idea in

different interests.

On the one hand, everyone has a creative ability and it relates with individual

passionate in any daily activities. On the other hands, many people still cannot

think creatively because they have some feeling obstructing them.

Fear in Creativity According to Tim Brown (2008), CEO of IDEO, he shows the difference in creative

thinking between adults and kids. By the experiment, when asking adults to draw

the face of next people, this will end with a laugh and a lot of sorry, but for kids,

they happy to show their work as a masterpiece. So what happens with the

process to become adults?

The process of learning to become adult, we become more sensitive to the

opinion of others; we fear of the judgement of our peer and we are embarrassed

about showing our ideas to people. And this fear is what causes us to be

conservative in our thinking and it restricts and degenerates our creativity.

Educating system could be the most influencing with adult’s thinking. Ken

Robinson notices the education system reduces student’s creativity. The

education’s models tend to support an economic system by producing the

workers to fit into each one specific discipline. Robinson (2010) says “we are

shutting children’s senses off instead of waking them up.” This education model

leds students to narrow their mind, and afraid of thinking differently or trying

something new, unfamiliar with, because it probably become mistakes in other’s

judgement.

“All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist

once he grows up.” – Picasso

Playfulness How to reduce the fear of judgement? Back to why kids are more creative than

adults, Tim Brown (2008) shows the concept of playfulness, it is important for

creativity where an environment opens for any ideas without judgement.

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The project of ‘busy mockingbird’, Mica Angela Hendricks, could be the great

example of playfulness. She collaborates with her daughter in the drawing. She

starts with drawing a face and let her daughter draw the body and create the

story. Later, she paints the drawing to complete the collaborative art piece.

Creativity in consumption Even in terms of consumption, where could reflect to the creativity of everyone.

The ownership had been seen as only the status after consuming. However, in

these days consumers need more opportunities to engage in creative activities.

“They need to be able to choose for themselves when to be consumers and when

to be creators” (Sanders, 2012, 16). Many products allow consumers to customize

into their unique need. It could be seen as consumers do not buy only product or

service but, they tend to buy the open areas for using their creativity in

customizing, adapting or organizing without others’ judgement. This situation

could be the new generation of ownership meaning. Likewise, it can be seen that

the segment of DIY market has been rapidly growing for these few decades.

Social creativity

“Creativity does not happen inside a person’s head but in the interaction between

a person’s thoughts and a socio-cultural context.” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996 cited by

Sanders, 2012, 58)

In 1950s, psychologist researched on creativity by focusing on the individual skill.

Since 1990s creativity could be seen in the area of collaboration. Nowadays, Keith

Sawyer claims that collaborative working can produce innovative solution more

than a genius individual working (cited by Sanders, 2012, 58).

Moreover, the previous chapter shows that sociability is the fundamental of

creativity and to fix the complex problem, it requires collaborative creativity,

which could be a tool for gathering community together. Creative activity could be

used to develop the community’s common. As in IDEO project improving health

care experience, Kaiser Permanente (cited by Brown, 2009, 291) shows that by

working in an interdisciplinary team, which create a collaborative workshop with

doctors, nurses and patients, can get a better result for design than hiring many

internal designers.

Even collaborative working has high potential, though it is also difficult. In reality,

when many people work together it usually has problems because different

perspectives could lead to disagreement. In the next chapter this essay will

introduce some tools for facilitating in collaborative working, in the next chapter.

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Celebrate the diversity. Develop living and relationship

We would like to propose an educational alternative that uses metadesign

methods. Metadesign supports social creativity, diverse ways of thinking and

collaboration through workshops, but also provide tools to facilitate it. A

metadesigner creates the conditions for participatory activities and celebrates the

differences in a group to come up with more sustainable solutions to social needs.

« To successfully cope with informed participation requires social changes as well

as new interactive systems that provide the opportunity and resources for social

debate and discussion rather than merely delivering predigested information to

users. » (Fischer, 2003) In fact, we (metadesigners) engage with the user to

facilitate a process rather than providing a finished solution. Our role is to seed a

process and to leave empty spaces for the user to fill, generating alternatives and

allowing solutions to emerge directly from the people the problem affects. The

stakeholders become co-designers. The stakeholders (or participants) in the case

of our project would mainly be students, teachers and the inhabitants of the

community. They define a problem, investigate, express themselves and engage in

personally meaningful activities from the beginning until the end of the process.

This is what we intend to do by proposing tools for a community, that will enhance

the quality of the area they live in and their social relationships.

We will now introduce a few examples of Metadesigner's tools:

1) The Cultural prop:

With the cultural prop tool, participants are asked to bring an object that

represent an experience in their personal life. This is done in order to motivate

storytelling on a certain theme. Then the participant is asked to write a few

keywords related to the object he/she brought, and these keywords will be shared

with the other participants. The keywords are grouped in « islands » that are

named to find common values and establish the group's identity. This tool draws

from the group's diversity and is used throughout the process as a reference for

the group's knowledge, values and interests. Here is a picture of islands we

produced during a Metadesign workshop.

2) The Bisociation:

As the fundamental definition of creativity (explained in the previous chapter), the

bisociation tool also works with keywords related to a specific theme. Based on

the concept of synergy (see “sociability” chapter), these keywords are shared

between the participants and, usually two by two, are put together in order to find

either a common theme, or more interestingly to find differences that will enable

a new, unexpected theme to emerge. This tool helps to learn to embrace

uncertainty whilst encouraging creativity and emerging ideas.

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3) The Tetrahedron:

The tetrahedron form is the simplest geometrical representation of a cell.

Metadesigners use it as a tool to map ideas and understand the four levels a

designer must operate on : the writer, the reader, the idea and the concept. These

four interdependent elements, when put on each node of the tetrahedron, are

directly connected and six reciprocal relationships are established. These

relationships must always be considered by the designer. As opposed to the

hierarchical pyramidal form, the tetrahedron is a democratic form that gives the

same importance to the four elements composing it. This form also triggers

empathy, since it constantly helps the designer to try to think in the perspective of

the different elements or “roles”. During a workshop we had with Mathias

Gmachl, the founder of Studio Loop.pH, we built 3D tetrahedrons the understand

the shape and the method previously explained.

A Curriculum of life « A curriculum of life » is a school-based research project that was established in a

poor and problematic suburb of Canada. The project focuses on the dynamic

relationship between students, teachers, knowledge and contexts, and is based on

critical practice and education for democratic transformation. Inspired by the

“Critical Pedagogy” philosophy on education described by Paulo Freire in his book

Pedagogy of the Opressed (Freire, 1970), the “Curriculum of Life” centres on co-

construction and co-production of knowledge rather than the student's personal

interests. The school provides abundant space for creativity and playfulness whilst,

on more profound levels, raises the awareness and concerns of the school and the

community. There, they learn about fundamental values such as helpfulness,

friendship, caring and community. The school's activities are related to the

immediate daily worlds of the children, but also to larger social and political

contexts. For example, one time, some of the students stole glasses in a shop. As a

« punishment », they had to work there to repay for their actions. Through doing

this, the students learned that « shop lifting cost the drug store the equivalent of a

full-time clerk's salary per month. » (Portelli, 2002) In a city where unemployment

is high, this kind of « revelation » is gripping. The on going activities help to give an

identity to the community, for which students take proud responsibility. This

successful project gives us inspiration since it is a good example of people's

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capacities in changing the community, using school as a platform. Through

collaboration and co-construction, many goals can be achieved, and more easily.

Moreover, experience-learning and co-activities are beneficial for both individual

and group intelligence.

In his book Tools for Conviviality, Illich talks about the need to develop new

instruments (« convivial tools ») for the reconquest of practical knowledge by the

average citizen. These tools would allow people to work with independent

efficiency. He states that « Convivial tools are those which give each person who

uses them the greatest opportunity to enrich the environment with the fruits of

his or her vision » (Illich, 1973, 21) In this idea, tools are created, developed and

maintained by a community of users to suit their needs. Moreover, with these

tools, the user learns from self experience. They are created to « (...) set up

educational arrangements that favor self-initiated, self-chosen learning, and that

relegate programmed teaching to limited, clearly specified occasions. » (Illich,

1973, 61) In our experimental project for a future community, we propose a range

of tools that promote creativity, learning from experience and collaboration for

the people of the community to come up with long term solutions for their

common issues.

We believe in the importance of metadesigners in this process since local

authorities are not always good at letting people know what kind services are

available to them. A direct contact between people of the community and the

service providers is needed. Thus the students would also be acting as agents for

change, as idea providers and generators. As facilitators, we would like to

enlighten the people on their power and capacity to change things by working

together, rather than relying on the authority. We want to let them know what

they can do to improve their life in the community and help them to participate.

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The collaborative creativity in developing each others

In the previous chapter, this essay introduces some tools for encouraging

communities to be creative collaboration in developing their area. By tools for

community, they tend to allow people to discuss freely, without judgement. This

could raise community’s empathy and creativity, which are the fundamentals of

social designers, which everyone could be. In this chapter this essay will give a

suggestion to bring these tools to the community to enable the inhabitants to

develop their area together.

Alternative education model The considering area is how to develop the contemporary education system.

According to Ken Robinson (2006), the traditional education model degenerates

student’s creativity. Also Jacques Attali suggests the future human requires

empathy. This essay tends to explore the opportunities in developing both

creativity and empathy in an alternative education model by using tools for

communities working collaboration. It could be seen as leaning from the

community, not the top-down system.

The writers try to create alternative learning activities which focus on the

collaboration of the school community which includes student, teacher, parent,

and the inhabitants living around. According to Tim Brown (2009, 51), he explains

in Change by Design that team working should be ‘interdisciplinary’, which is

collective ownership, not merely ‘multidisciplinary’. Some tools for the

community, in the previous chapter, can be used to facilitate in interdisciplinary

working.

In this project, the writers decide criteria which should be concerned:

Flexible in time and place

Responding to the individual’s requirements

Include everybody (ethnic groups, people with disabilities…)

Adaptable to the different needs

Support and help social interaction

Participation in practice

Experiencing on location

DREAMs Project idea In working together, the activity should have the clear and interesting objective

for the stakeholders. So objective of this project tends to support student’s dream

by organizing workshops run separate the school-time. The project could be based

on collective activity, such as a life-skill workshop, storytelling or community

survey. This should be run by the school staffs as facilitators, and the students,

parents and the inhabitants around the school can be the participants, or even the

leader of the some specific projects. The activity tends to develop the school

community in both physical and relationship, and also gives the different

experience in grouping student by their interests, activities and skills, from regular

education’s model, aged-divided.

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Action 1. Start with visualizing student’s idea by creating the ‘dream report’ where

student can write or draw their dream communities, including a request, a problem and anything.

2. School staffs or teachers will organize student’s dreams and plan activity’s schedule and place, possible during school break.

3. The school announces dream events (figure 11) to students, parents or local communities around the school to be ‘a dream-developer volunteer’.

4. The staffs facilitate the workshop by using tools for the community 5. By the participation of their parents, the students can have a credit for

attending another workshop as the return of this system.

Expectation 1. Students have experience in collaborative working, be more creative and

empathy. 2. Increase the interaction in the community around the school, more safety. 3. The school’s area has been regenerated, (reduce awkward space.) 4. Everyone has confidence in DIY activities. 5. The communities can support themselves; don’t have to wait for the leader,

top-down development.

Further step Actually, this idea could be applied to other institutions, such as company,

hospital, elderly house, homeless centre.

For another example, Emily Pilloton creates the program named Project H, which

creates design workshops for children for the community transformative in the

long-term (figure 11). http://www.projecthdesign.org/

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Experiment in Goldsmiths, University

With the Dream Together Board tool we plan to create for the community, we are

asking the inhabitants of the area for feedback, requests and developing ideas.

This tool is the first step to the collaborative systems we wish to create, that

would encourage self-supportive community.

We decided to run an experiment of this tool in Goldsmiths University. We

created two Dream Together Boards that invited the students to write their ideas

for the development and the future of Goldsmiths. This tool proposed two

platforms for idea gathering: one is to write directly on the board, the other is via

email. We placed these two boards (figure 15) in two different strategic places:

one in front of the canteen (figure 13), and one up the stairs of the Student Union,

before the “Natura Cafe”(figure 14). The first place is widely open, with a high

number of students passing by at every hour of the day. The second place is

smaller and dim.

The experiment ran for ten days, but the boards were filled with a lot quicker than

expected. We received no email (yet).

Themes that came up the most:

- Strike issues - Food (especially in front of the canteen) - More free things - Games such as pool table and ball pits (especially at student union) - Love, relationships and sex (from “cuddle room” to “free sex”)

Some very interesting ideas, more related to the subject we explore also came up

such as an “Inter-year group project” and “More freedom for creativity &

greenness around campus”.

The board in Student Union, probably because less in sight, was full of less serious

even though playful and joking around comments (sometimes with added words

to comments previously written by others) But in front of the canteen, a fully open

space, we had to add a second board. A lot of the comments were written, and

some very interesting ones. Moreover, we were happy to see one comment

stating that the board was a “very good idea”. Furthermore, from the result, it

could be seen that the environment affects results. The ideas which relate to

community development are usually written in open space. And the students tend

to share ideas with others, in where could be seen, more than keep their ideas

private and contact in person.

The Dream Together Board tool experiment came out with really good outcomes

at Goldsmiths University, and we are looking forward to propose it for bigger

community use.

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In collaborative creativity, nothing is impossible.

This essay tries to find the opportunities in making community more sustainable.

In the early parts of this essay show the importance and the relation between

sociability and creativity which are relevant to how our lives. Moreover, they are

the fundamental abilities for future humanity. Conversely, the traditional

education model leads children to loss these abilities. Thus, this essay tries to

explore an alternative platform in learning with creativity and sociability. ‘Learning

from a community’ is our idea of an alternative education model. Besides, it would

develop that community in physical ways and relationship between them, and

raise an awareness of the community

By this model, the students have the chance to learn what they are exactly

interesting in without a hierarchy of subjects in education system or the

judgment. In other words, this could create a creative environment for children to

think creatively and develop it. In terms of facilitating, metadesign tools could be

the suitable tools to let diverse people work collaboratively, harmoniously and

creatively.

Furthermore, the students, parents and the participators could have a conception

that learning never has a limit; everyone can learn from the surrounding people,

neighbour, community and also family all the time. And learning activity possible

be used to support the community we live in too.

Also, this collaborative model is wide-range concept, which can be developed into

other different contexts, such as in families, in university, in organization, social

designers and so on. Because ‘Learners’, instead of merely ‘students’, are in

everywhere and every activity. So different tools would to be created to support

‘Learners’ for both individual development and community development.

By opening for the diversity of views, we can use them to develop own creativity.

And in the collaborative creativity, nothing is impossible. Finally, the writers hope

this idea of creative learning model and the experiment of the writer could inspire

the reader some opportunities in the self - development community and other

further ideas. Thanks for reading.

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Attali, J. (2013). Histoire de la Modernité. Paris: Robert Laffont

Brown, T. (2008) ‘Tales of Creativity and Play’. TED Global. Available from: http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_brown_on_creativity_and_play.html [Accessed 11 February 2014]

Brown, T. (2009) Change by Design. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.

Fischer, G. (2003). ‘Meta-Design: Beyond User-Centered and Participatory Design’. Available from: http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/~gerhard/papers/hci2003-meta-design.pdf [Accessed 11 February 2014]

Illich, I. (1973). Tools for Conviviality. London: Calder & Boyars

Portelli, J. (2002). ‘A Curriculum of Life’. Available from: https://www.academia.edu/398087/A_Curriculum_of_Life [Accessed 16 February 2014]

Robinson, K. (2006) ‘How Schools Kill Creativity.’ Monterey: TED Global. Available from: http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html [Accessed 13 January 2014]

Russ, J. (2001). Dictionnaire de la Philosophie. France: Bordas

Sanders, E. B.-N. and P. J. Stappers (2012) Convivial Toolbox: Generative Research for the Front End of Design. Amsterdam: BIS Publishers.

Sheldrake, R. (2012). The Science Delusion: Freeing the spirit of enquiry. UK: Coronet Books

Figure 1: Saranurak, P. (2014) Tetrahedron mapping.

Figure 2 Health and sociability. At http://www.brightonimplantclinic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/oral-health-care-and-the-elderly.png [Accessed 19 February 2014]

Figure 3: Verbaeys, C. (2014) An example of synergy. Chlorine, once mixed with sodium makes salt.

Figure 4: Saranurak, P. (2014) H-Creative & P-Creative

Figure 5: Busy Mockingbird (2014) Picasso. At: http://busymockingbird.com/2014/01/21/picassoh/ [Accessed February 2014]

Figure 6: Verbaeys, C. (2014) Islands of keywords.

Figure 7: Saranurak, P. (2014) Bisociation in co-writing project, S.M.I.L.E.S

Figure 8: Design Futures Students (2013) Tetrahedron workshop.

Figure 9: Portelli, J. (2002) Children of curriculum of Life. At: https://www.

academia.edu/398087/A_Curriculum_of_Life [Accessed 16 February 2013]

Figure 10: Saranurak, P. (2014) Stakeholder mapping for creating new scenario.

Figure 11: Saranurak, P. (2014) DREAMs Project’s flow.

Figure 12: Saranurak, P. (2014) An idea for announcing.

Figure 13: Workshop H by Project-H Design. At: http://www.projecthdesign.org/ [Accessed 17 February 2014]

Figure 14: Saranurak, P. (2014) Widely open area.

Figure 15: Saranurak, P. (2014) Small and dim area.

Figure 16 Saranurak, P. (2014) Dream boards’ locations.

Figure 17: Collaborative community. At: http://www.iiaweb.com/about/community [Accessed 16 February 2014]

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